Comparative Analysis of Intimacy Panics
Alexy (2019a) defines intimacy panics as “intimacy practices supposedly causing harm to the social order” (p. 15). Every society legitimizes certain relationships and relational conduct while opposing others. Intimate practices that were once viewed as deviant (e.g., same-sex or interracial marriage in the U.S.) may later become socially acceptable. Those that are viewed as completely normal in one society may cause public concern in another culture (e.g., later-life divorce in Japan). There are still others that have caused concerns in many countries (e.g., aging and elderly support). For this assignment, you will identify an example of an intimacy panic that was not covered in class and analyze it from a comparative/cross-cultural perspective.
Topic: The topic that you investigate can be either contemporary or historical, and it can be either culturally specific or transnational. However, you need to have enough evidence to show that the phenomenon you are analyzing caused public concerns, even a moral crisis, in a society (or many societies). News reports, scholarly articles and books, historical documents, documentaries and films, and social media discussions may all serve as evidence to indicate public attention and anxiety. In other words, you should not present something as an intimacy panic just because it has made you uncomfortable.
An easy way to start searching for an example is to look at intimacy “crises” that have been covered in media. Good international news sources include BBC (Crossing Continents, Documentaries, Global News), The Guardian, Der Spiegel International, Al Jazeera, NPR World, The New York Times World News, etc. You may also want to watch other episodes in Christiane Amanpour: Sex and Love Around the World or other shows or documentaries for inspiration. Alternatively, you may search for domestic examples in U.S. media (or media in your own culture) first and look for parallel cases in other societies.
Research: After identifying your example, you will delve deeper into the phenomenon and do some background research about the following questions:
What is this phenomenon like? Who are involved in this intimate practice and what is the social, economic, institutional, and cultural background behind this phenomenon?
Why has this intimate practice become a social problem? Why do people view it as problematic? What kinds of moral concerns do people have? What and whose social or moral orders are challenged by this intimate conduct? What kinds of values and norms in this society do their objections indicate?
What roles do media play in constructing this moral panic? Do media tend to exacerbate the seriousness of the issue or do they provide fair representations? Do media provide competing narratives of the phenomenon?
How do people participating in this intimate practice view and understand their own behaviors? How do they respond to public objection and criticism?
How do scholars view this phenomenon? Why do they think this issue is important to research and what are their stances on it?
How has the society responded to the public panic? Have laws or policies been issued to regulate this kind of relational conduct or assuage public concern? Are there organizations, campaigns, or cultural groups that support this practice and what are their agendas and actions?
From a comparative perspective, how common is the phenomenon across the world? Is it culturally specific or a global trend, and why? If this is an international issue, do you see similar patterns in your culture? If this is a domestic issue, do you see similar patterns in other cultures? How would people outside of the culture view this intimate practice and why do you think so?
Deliverable:
You will write a short, 2-page analysis to present some of your findings. You do not need to answer every single question listed above, but your analysis should be clear, concise, and convincing. You need to adopt a cross-cultural perspective in your analysis, so make sure that you do some research on the last question.
A list of sources you used in your research. I’m sure that you will need and use more than two sources, but at the minimum, you must have at least one trustworthy media source and one scholarly source.
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